I appreciate very much the Deputy's sincerity in wanting to look after people under pressure. We have a similar position but I think we need an honest debate as well. The Deputy cannot just come in here and say we have no vision for investment in the grid. Where has she been in the last number of months when we announced an investment of up to €19 billion in the grid? I refer to the PR6, where we put substantial bill…
TDs / Micheál Martin
Micheál Martin
Taoiseach
Portrait: © Houses of the Oireachtas (Oireachtas (Open Data) PSI Licence) · source file
0
questions asked
Members of the Government answer questions rather than ask them
688,766
words spoken in the chamber
686,628 as a minister, 2,138 as a TD
197
votes recorded
Each Yes, No or Abstained in a recorded vote
From the Dáil chamber only: committee meetings are not in this archive.
Members of the Government answer parliamentary questions rather than ask them, so this page lists none of theirs.
Month by month
Low months are usually recesses, when the Dáil does not sit. The archive runs to 22 October 2026.
Contributions to debates 6,546 in all
Dec 2024Oct 2026
Show as a table
| Month | Contributions |
|---|---|
| December 2024 | 11 |
| January 2025 | 6 |
| February 2025 | 438 |
| March 2025 | 518 |
| April 2025 | 317 |
| May 2025 | 426 |
| June 2025 | 424 |
| July 2025 | 344 |
| August 2025 | 0 |
| September 2025 | 146 |
| October 2025 | 375 |
| November 2025 | 291 |
| December 2025 | 281 |
| January 2026 | 326 |
| February 2026 | 529 |
| March 2026 | 229 |
| April 2026 | 385 |
| May 2026 | 474 |
| June 2026 | 425 |
| July 2026 | 181 |
| August 2026 | 0 |
| September 2026 | 198 |
| October 2026 | 222 |
Debates they spoke in most
Plus 6,426 contributions in the regular slots, such as Leaders' Questions and Priority Questions. Speech from the chair is not counted.
Party, constituency and offices
- constituency Cork South-Central 29 November 2024 to now
- party Fianna Fáil 29 November 2024 to now
- office Taoiseach 23 January 2025 to now
Let us have an honest debate where we can agree and disagree on the facts and let us not make up stuff that does not have any basis from a factual point of view.
In terms of the surplus, I repeat that is going into the funds, such as the Future Ireland Fund and the infrastructure and nature fund. The Ireland Strategic Investment Fund, ISIF, manages that and it is being invested in a whole range of areas including re…
We have put billions into the funds.
We then have an Exchequer deficit of €1.1 billion. That is what we have after the moneys is allocated to the funds. We do not have billions of surplus, if the Deputy accepts that the moneys should go to the funds, and she accepts that they should. When they are in the funds, they are being invested and so on under ISIF. We take the Deputy's point in terms of pressures that people are under. On the renewables, we are …
The Deputy looks at the world through one prism when it comes to housing; we look at it through another. In my vision for young people, housing is number one and it means a relentless focus on supply. The Social Democrats have opposed all supply measures in this House for the last number of years and they keep on criticising every single initiative that we have undertaken. If we do not get supply up, we will not mode…
We will keep it under review. We will look at every single way we can ease pressure on people, ease pressure on the private rental market and also give opportunities to people. We will follow up with guidelines for rural housing. We have a crisis with housing but we will never solve it if we criticise every single measure that a Government introduces, which the Social Democrats have been doing for five years. I belie…
I am solution driven in terms of housing and the Deputy is not.
Sorry, I am answering the question. The Social Democrats, for example, voted against all residential zoning proposals on Fingal County Council. Two weeks ago, when the council agreed development plans to zone for 5,000 additional homes, the Social Democrats opposed them.
They opposed the project in Ballymastone as well. People are now living in those houses. The Social Democrats cannot just keep opposing everything and claim they are serious about housing. That is the point I am making. Choices have to be made. As regards the planning in terms of the exemptions and so on, it is a major package of exempted development regulations to reduce planning bureaucracy. Planning bureaucracy ha…
All of that will happen.
No, it is not.
I am very clear: we will reduce the pressure on the-----
I was out in Dublin Central last evening with Councillor John Stephens, and it was a very pleasant evening indeed. There was good feedback and a lot of issues raised, of course, on the doorsteps.
Yes, approval has been given to the expected appointment of Robert Watt as CEO, seconded to the special purpose vehicle. The SPV is a key legal vehicle to ensure not only the implementation of the task force report, but als…
It is not as if we are not investing right now, as the Deputy knows. About €132 million from the urban regeneration and development fund, URDF, has already been already allocated for the north inner city concept area 1 proposal. This involves the regeneration and redevelopment of several areas of the north city that have suffered from dereliction and decline. Some €60 million of URDF funding has been allocated to the…
I introduced the whole concept of special needs assistants to education back in 1998. The numbers have grown expediently since. We are now at 25,000 SNAs. In any honest way, how can the Deputy suggest there are cuts in the number of SNAs when it is the opposite direction? In fact, the Government today approved further investment in education, which will mean more special needs assistants above the 25,000 for the 2026…
The campaign is a flawed campaign. It is a false one.
We do not need to save SNAs because we are expanding the number of SNAs. We actually have more SNAs.
We have more investment. The Deputy is searching for votes. I understand that.
We are actually investing more. The Government has approved more investment in SNAs today.
There comes a time when one has to accept the bona fides of the Government on this. We have worked with Keir Starmer's Government on this.
We had a very good outcome on this, thankfully, when we got the British Government to agree. We are very confident that they will receive redress and that they will not be disadvantaged on receipt of redress in terms of whatever welfare or benefits they may be on in the United Kingdom. That was a good outcome of the UK-Ireland summit that we had in March. That is what we want to do.
I thank the Deputy for raising the question. We are increasing investment incrementally year-on-year in this area. We started from a low base in respect of CAMHS-ID. I think there is an extra €2 million for that specific area in this year's budget. We are going to increase that. Recruitment has been challenging but we are going to expand it and are going to continue to expand it. There are about 45 people working in …
My understanding is that consular services are being made available to those involved in this. The Deputy has not defined what he means by direct action. We will do everything we can to uphold the human rights of any Irish citizen in any jurisdiction. That will continue. We will continue to do that. The courts and the legal system in a given country will also have to take their course. We do not have the capacity to …
First, it is not a simple decision not to fund. That is not a fair way of putting it. I have spoken to the Minister for Health on this issue. As the Deputy knows, there is a legislative framework governing the reimbursement of medicines, particularly for rare conditions. This is a very sad case with very difficult circumstances for the family. I have spoken to the Minister and I will continue to engage with her this …
I thank Deputy McAuliffe. I certainly will try to help him to get the background to what happened here if he could feed more information and details to me. As he is aware, the Dublin Fire Brigade ambulance service covers the Dublin area. It is unacceptable that a woman would be lying on the ground for four hours. I will get a response from the ambulance service for the Deputy.